Monday, August 31, 2015

Matt Eastwood, worldwide chief creative officer of JWT, has one of the world's biggest creative jobs, and has to be considered one of Australia's global creative leaders not just in advertising, but in any field.

Is it partly due to the way he dresses?

Now don't get me wrong, Mr Eastwood has overseen a ton of great work. A TON. Examples: “Yeah, that
kind of rich” for the New York Lottery, and the “Hashtag Killer” campaign for WATERisLIFE.

I really enjoyed this recent podcast in which Eastwood discusses topics as varied as leadership behaviour, and how JWT invented the grilled cheese sandwich.

He's impressive throughout - a solid combo of charm, insight and dedication.

But because I'm extraordinarily superficial, there was one section in particular that really struck me. It was a part where he described his days as a young creative, and how on deciding that he wanted to become a Creative Director, he changed the way he dressed. He smartened up, and started to wear a jacket.

At first his fellow creatives ribbed him a bit, but after a while they accepted it... and so did the senior Suits, and Clients.

Shortly afterwards, he was promoted to Creative Director.

Now, I expect I'll get heat for this. Some of the most rabid comments I've ever had on this blog were not triggered by frenzied debates over controversial pieces of work, but came when I dared to suggest that what you wear makes a difference to how you are perceived. I guess Creatives are hardcore and want to think "it's all about the work." That's a praiseworthy belief to hold, but there is plenty of evidence showing that your appearance matters too.

So... are you wearing a jacket?

And please note, I mean this as much metaphorically as literally. In other words, I'm suggesting you ask yourself: are you solely focused on coming up with great ideas, or are you also making smart choices about how you progress your career?

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Sometimes, a technological advance kills an entire industry. Like CD's killed vinyl.Could ad blockers be about to kill online advertising?

For many websites, who rely on selling display ad units, the situation is highly concerning.

On the typical gaming site, for example, ad blocking rates now top
50 percent, according to ad tech firm Secret Media, while those for fashion and lifestyle sites are
close to 35 percent.

The phenomenon is worse in some countries than others - only 15 percent of American users, for example, are using ad blockers.

But what if the Americans catch on? There are signs they are about to. Online searches for the term 'ad blocker' are rising rapidly.

I am a long-time advocate of advertising, and of the value of advertising. (That website you like? It's almost certainly funded by advertising).

I personally would never install an adblocker, and I think the technology is close to being immoral, because it creates a 'free rider' problem - people benefiting from web content, without paying its creators. It's akin to piracy.In fact the business model of AdBlock Plus is arguably comparable to piracy; they earn their income from charging big companies for an exemption from ad blocking - a characteristic that had French web publishers contemplating legal action against them.We have to be honest about the forces that are driving uptake of ad blockers. They are brilliantly summed up in this article by Tom Goodwin - the same guy who wrote this widely-read critique of Cannes.

Goodwin points to pre-roll ads that insert themselves midway in articles, ads for Mercedes vehicles that are seen before beheading videos, pages that take forever to load because they're swamped by cookies and content the user didn't ask for, articles on websites which “welcome” you with bogus welcome
screens and where pop-ups barge their way past browser
settings.

Some of his solutions are so innovative that he feels obliged to describe them as 'thought-experiments': they include the idea that web publishers could reduce online advertising inventory to one-tenth of its current size, and use only premium spaces.

But his main recommendation - and one I wholeheartedly agree with - is very simple.

Create better ads.

When the ads are of at least decent quality, consumers will be more happy to accept the trade-off (I get free web content, in return for seeing some ads).

At the moment, the amount of time and money being invested in creating online advertising is far too low.

The targeting capabilities of online advertising are incredible, and far exceed anything possible in traditional media. Now it's time the creative bar was raised too.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

This last week has
seen the starkest possible contrast in fortunes for two of Australia's sports
teams.

The cricketers were thrashed
by the English. Australia ‘lost’ the Ashes – although technically it never really had
them, since the actual urn, for reasons of colonial oppression, remain on
permanent display at Lord’s – leading to the retirement of Michael Clarke, the
captain. Yes, the ‘Pup’ has been put down.

Meanwhile, the
Wallabies ended a four-year drought with a sparkling 27-19 win over the All
Blacks, and are being tipped as World Cup winners.

So, enough of their
performances on the field, how are the two sports faring in the digital arena?

It
turns out that the Australian Rugby Union has a far higher percentage of their audience engaged at 44.0%, compared to Cricket
Australia which has 2.8% engaged.

The most effective
medium for Cricket Australia – by far – is Twitter. In fact it has the leading Twitter
engagement rate of any of the 44 Australian sporting bodies tracked by BrandData. (In addition to having the most successful website). Yet curiously, it is
the second LEAST effective of all 44 bodies on Facebook.

The Australian Rugby
Union, by contrast, is the MOST effective on Facebook. (And also first on
YouTube). But is nowhere on Twitter.

Since one is weak
exactly where the other is strong, and vice versa, the obvious conclusion is they
could create a real social media powerhouse by simply combining the two sports.

For sure, the merger
would throw up some challenges. Like… which ball to use? It certainly wouldn’t
be easy to hit a rugby ball very far with a cricket bat. Nor would it be a
cinch to locate a cricket ball in the ruck. As far as personnel, there are some
easier calls. Steve Smith surely has the physique to be a scrum half. Mitchell
Johnson could power down the wing, no problem. And if Matt Giteau can bowl as
well as he kicks, that would really help this ‘Crugby’ team succeed.

But other than a
merger, the Brand Data conclusion for what each body needs to do to enhance
their online presence is clear:

Lose.

For
despite its on-field success, the ARU has dropped three places in the last
week, in terms of the digital league table of sporting bodies. While Cricket Australia, despite its defeat –
or let’s face it, probably because of
the excitement that the team’s crisis has created – increased
seven places (to 12th).

Monday, August 03, 2015

One of the biggest blunders I have seen ad agency people make - again and again, over the years - is to spend 55 minutes of a one-hour presentation, talking.

The result of course is that the most crucial part of the meeting, the back-and-forth, is severely curtailed.

We do it because we think we're selling something, rather than working collaboratively with the Client to solve their marketing problems. We do it because we train people to 'present' not to listen. We do it because we hire extroverts, performers, and egotists. (Please note I'm not excluding myself from these criticisms. Been guilty many times).

There's an interesting article in the latest Harvard Business Review titled 'Create a conversation, not a presentation'.

Many of its recommendations are totally impractical in our industry, such as, for example, circulating a presentation to the meeting's participants several days in advance. Consulting may be different, but in advertising that would often mean we didn't have any time to do the actual work.

But the main thrust of the piece - that a good meeting is a conversation, not a presentation - is well-observed.

Obviously, the key is to ask questions. And I'm talking about genuine questions, not the fake kind whose real intention is to display how smart the question-asker is, or how much knowledge they have.

I think too often we're concerned to fill the time. Whereas some of the best meetings I've ever had occurred when we finished early by mistake, and it then devolved into just a really productive chat.

We're also too often concerned to appear 'right'.

But usually the person who has the right questions is more useful than the person who has, or thinks they have, all the answers.